POLITICS-SIERRA LEONE: RUF Rebels On the Rampage in the North

By Lansana Fofana Reprint | | Print |

Lansana Fofana

FREETOWN, Feb 23 1998 (IPS) - While Sierra Leoneans in some parts of the country continue to enjoy an atmosphere of peace due to the presence of West African Peacekeeping troops, the northern regional capital of Makeni is filled with former junta forces who have gone on the rampage.

According to reports from the area, members of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), allies of the Armed Forces Ruling Council (AFRC) in the deposed military junta, are shooting indiscriminately and looting the property of fleeing residents.

They also have disrupted all communications lines to Makeni, vandalised project vehicles belonging to agencies working in the area and taken as hostages Dr Fernando Aquillo, an Italian doctor at the Mabesseneh Hospital in nearby Lunsar, plus three other unnamed foreign doctors and a priest.

“The rebels and soldiers stormed the St. Paul’s Seminary in Makeni where thousands of civilians had fled for safety, opened fired sporadically and beat up an 81-year-old priest before embarking on a looting spree,” said Hawa Mansaray, a survivor of the attack who is now in Freetown.

Freetown, Bo and Kenema in the West, South and East respectively, are protected by the Nigerian-led ECOMOG troops who successfully ousted the military junta of Johnny Paul Koroma a week ago.

The state radio has confirmed the rebel reign of terror in Makeni, and reported that a number of houses were burnt down by the former junta forces.

Eyewitnesses said the trouble started last week when soldiers of the Sierra Leone army at the Second Infantry Brigade in Makeni mounted a white flag indicating peace and a willingness to assemble all weapons ahead of ECOMOG’s disarmament exercise.

This move, reports said, enraged the RUF elements in the AFRC, who then went on the rampage, breaking into homes and looting. Unconfirmed reports say 12 civilians were killed.

Hundreds of Nigerian ECOMOG troops have been airlifted from Monrovia, Liberia, into Sierra Leone for the disarmament process.

Also, an ECOMOG alpha jet which was on a reconnaissance flight in Makeni, about 170 kilometres from Freetown, was shot at by the junta forces.

The jet had dropped bombs at the Makeni police station and at the Second Battalion barracks causing some deaths and destruction.

The skirmishes in Makeni have forced the area’s 200,000 residents to start fleeing by sea in dug-out canoes or on foot through the bush.

“I walked 55 miles on foot from Makeni to Port Loko before catching a canoe to Freetown. The journey was traumatic and there were numerous rebel roadblocks with persistent harassment,” Mansaray said.

During the seven-year civil conflict in Sierra Leone, Makeni was the only regional capital that remained untouched. There is a large non-governmental organisation (NGO) presence in the area, expatriate doctors, farmers and a number of community development activities.

But the current state of insecurity has forced the expatriate community to flee and farmers also have abandoned their plots. “The disruption of farming activities may have adverse effects on the people, because of food shortages caused by the eight months embargo,” said agricultural officer Abu Conteh.

West African nations last year imposed an economic embargo on the country to force the military to restore the civilian government of Ahmed Tejan Kabbah who fled to neighbouring Guinea when Koroma came to power.

Conteh added that the farmers would have harvested their crops this season, but now, the rebels are razing the farmlands.

Makeni is a fertile agricultural area with both upland and swamp rice activities. Koroma and his chief of defence staff, Samual F.Y. Koroma, both come from the area.

“Junta forces may want to establish firm control on Makeni in order to make it their headquarters,” said Mustapha Sesay, a political analyst in Freetown, the capital.

A pro-democracy radio station reported in Freetown on Sunday that the ECOMOG task force in Sierra Leone has vowed to deploy troops to Makeni and elsewhere in the northern province soon “to flush out rebels who are killing civilians and burning houses”.

Lt Eldred Collins, the RUF spokesman, said in a radio interview at the weekend that the rebels would continue to cause havoc until their leader, Corporal Foday Sankoh, who is detained in Nigeria, is released.